Of All Sad Words (12 page)

“Or a mule,” Lawton said. “Dependin’ on which one it is.”

“Caller said a donkey,” Hack reminded him. “I’m bettin’ it’s a donkey.”

“Could be a burro,” Lawton said. “Now, your burro really does look like a donkey.”

“I thought a burro and a donkey were the same thing.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. Your burro—”

“That’s enough of that,” Rhodes said.

Hack and Lawton looked at each other and stifled grins. Rhodes asked them if there were any other calls he needed to deal with.

“Nothin’ important,” Hack said. “But don’t forget about Miz Owens’s possums.”

“Dogs might like a possum around the house,” Lawton said. “I know a guy kept one for a pet once. He says—”

“Never mind,” Rhodes told him.

The door of the jail opened and Jennifer Loam came in.

“Never mind what?” she said.

“Possums,” Hack told her. “It’s a big story. Front-page stuff. They’re runnin’ wild in Miz Hallie Owens’s attic.”

Jennifer didn’t appear to be ready to yell “Stop the presses.” “What I want to know about is Jerry Kergan.”

Rhodes told her the bare facts, while trying not to appear too evasive.

“You don’t have an identification on the truck?” she asked when he was finished.

Rhodes told her that Buddy was working on it. He didn’t mention his other encounter with the truck or anything else that had happened at the Crawford place. Jennifer would make the connection soon enough, he figured.

“You have a big event scheduled this afternoon, don’t you?” she said.

Rhodes had completely forgotten about the book signing, and he was sorry to be reminded.

“I’m not sure I can make it,” he said.

“You better be there,” Hack said. “You’re gonna be famous, and you don’t want to miss out on the beginnin’.”

“I’ll be covering it for the paper,” Jennifer said. “I’ll want some pictures of you and the authors. I think there’ll be a big crowd.”

Rhodes hoped no one would show up. “I’ll be there if I can. I have a murder investigation going on.”

“The signing won’t take much of your time,” Jennifer said. “I’ll see you there.”

“Don’t count on me.”

“All right, I won’t, but I’m sure the authors will.”

Jennifer left to drive to Dooley’s for a picture of the Dumpster, and Rhodes told Hack that he was going over to the courthouse, where he had an office.

“You might check on Buddy while you’re there,” Hack said. “Unless he’s left already.”

Rhodes said that he would.

“What about them possums? Miz Owens is gonna call back sure as you’re livin’.”

“Tell her we’re working on it,” Rhodes said.

Rhodes had always liked his office in the courthouse for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it was private. He didn’t have to listen to anybody discussing the difference between burros and donkeys.

Unfortunately, the other reason had recently been taken away from him. In the past, he’d been able to get Dr Pepper in glass bottles in the soft-drink machine near his office. Not anymore. The machine had been removed and replaced with an up-to-date model that dispensed plastic bottles. The only thing that surprised Rhodes was that the old machine hadn’t been removed long before.

The good news, however, was that sometime within the past week, the Dr Peppers placed in the new machine all had little notices on the bottles declaring that the drinks were made with real sugar instead of corn syrup. For years, the only way Rhodes had been able to get Dr Pepper made with real sugar was to order it from the plant in Dublin, Texas, but now it seemed that other places were using real sugar again.

So while Rhodes had to suffer the plastic bottles, he got real sugar in his drink. And the drinks were in much bigger bottles. He still preferred the glass ones, but he figured that the real sugar was worth making a sacrifice for.

But there was another problem. The machine was so complicated that it often shook the Dr Pepper up and caused it to spew if Rhodes opened it as soon as he got it. He had to be careful.

He put his money in the machine, got the Dr Pepper, and went to his office. He left the drink on his desk without screwing off the cap and went down to the basement, where the tax office and vehicle-registration department were located. One of the clerks told him that Buddy was still there, and he asked her to send him up when he got through with what he was doing. The clerk said she’d be glad to do that, and Rhodes went back to his office. He took the stairs instead of the creaky elevator. That way, he got a little exercise and didn’t have to worry about being trapped between floors.

The Dr Pepper was all right when Rhodes returned, so he opened it and took a swallow. It wasn’t as cold as it would have been from a glass bottle, or so he thought, but it made him feel a little better, and he set the bottle down so that he could make a call to the TABC and let them know about the still he’d found at the Crawfords’.

The call didn’t take long, though the man Rhodes talked to was surprised to hear what Rhodes had found.

“We don’t get reports of more than one or two of those a year,” he said. “You’re sure about this?”

Rhodes wanted to say that he knew the difference between a still and a burro, but he didn’t think the man would get the joke.

“I’m sure. It’s a still all right. I’m trying to find the man who owns it.”

He went on to explain the circumstances and said he’d let the TABC representative onto the property when he showed up. After he hung up, he had time to take another swallow of the Dr Pepper before Buddy came in.

Buddy had been with the sheriff’s department almost as long as Rhodes had. He was whip-thin and had a low tolerance for wrongdoers. In the Old West, he’d have been a hanging judge.

Rhodes asked what he’d found out about the truck.

“Not a thing,” Buddy said, sitting down in the chair across from Rhodes’s desk. “That truck’s not registered to Jamey Hamilton, at least not in this county. He drives a little Chevy S-Ten. I called the Dodge dealers in the counties around here, and they don’t remember that bumper guard, so nobody installed it at a dealership. Or if it was, it was too long ago for anybody to remember it. I’ll check the welders after I leave here, but I figure it was put on in some other county, too.”

“Never mind about the welders,” Rhodes said. “See what you can find out about Jamey Hamilton. I know he’s lived in Obert for three or four years, but find out where he came from and what he did there.”

“All right. I guess I can do that.”

“I’m sure you can,” Rhodes told him.

After Buddy left, Rhodes finished his Dr Pepper and considered his next move. He couldn’t decide whether to talk to Mikey Burns or Mel Muller first. He’d look for Crawford and Hamilton, but he didn’t know where to start, and Ruth was looking for them anyway. Rhodes suspected that Lawless might know where they were. He’d talk to Lawless later.

He had an Indian Head penny in the center drawer of his desk. His father had given it to him when Rhodes was about to start the first grade. It was supposed to be his lucky piece. Rhodes didn’t know if it had been lucky or not, but he’d managed to survive first grade and the rest of his education unscathed. Why, he’d even learned a couple of lines of poetry.

He opened the drawer and took out the penny. He’d carried it with him for so many years that the date on the coin was too rubbed to read, but he remembered that it had been 1902.

“Heads, Muller,” he said. “Tails, Burns.”

He flipped the coin. It spun in the air and landed on the desk. Rhodes thought it might roll off, but it didn’t. The Indian Head was showing.

“Mel Muller it is,” he said.

He started to put the penny back into the drawer, but he slipped it in his pocket instead. He had a feeling he was going to need all the luck he could get.

Chapter 14

MEL MULLER WASN’T ANY HAPPIER TO SEE RHODES THAN SHE’D been the day before, less so if anything. Her hair wasn’t combed and her eyes were red. She held a tissue clenched in her hand.

“What do you want?” she said to Rhodes as he stood in the doorway of the manufactured home. “If it’s about that Web site, you tell Mikey Burns to give me a call and I’ll tell him what he can do with his damn Web site.”

“It’s not about the Web site,” Rhodes said. “It’s about Jerry Kergan.”

Mel choked back a sob and opened the door wider. Rhodes went inside. The place didn’t look any different. Somewhere a radio was playing songs from the 1950s. Rhodes recognized “Witch Doctor.”

“I listen to the radio on the Internet,” Mel said when he gave her an inquiring look. She brushed at her eyes with the tissue. “I hate listening to commercials.”

“But ‘Witch Doctor’?”

“I don’t much like any of the music I grew up with. I mean, disco? Give me a break. Anyway, you didn’t come here to discuss my taste in music.”

“Can we sit down?” Rhodes asked.

Mel walked over to the easy chair and brushed the computer magazines off it and onto the floor.

“Have a seat,” she said.

Rhodes sat in the chair, and Mel sat on the couch. She looked at Rhodes, waiting to hear what he had to say. The radio played “Tom Dooley.” Hearing the voices of the Kingston Trio, Rhodes was reminded of Max Schwartz.

“You’ve heard about Jerry Kergan, I guess,” Rhodes said.

Mel brushed at her eyes again. “I’ve heard. What do you care?”

“His death wasn’t an accident. I’m going to find out who killed him and why.”

“And you think I can help you?”

Her eyes were dry now, and hard. Rhodes didn’t think she was going to cooperate.

“That’s what I think,” he said.

“Well, I can’t help, no matter what you think. I would if I could, but I don’t know a thing about what happened or why it happened or anything else. If you’ll leave now, I’ll get to work on that Web site you’re so worried about.”

“I’m not worried about it. Mikey Burns is. Which reminds me. I’ve been thinking about something you said last night.”

Mel didn’t appear to care what Rhodes remembered. She just looked at him.

“You said something to the effect that Mikey Burns wouldn’t know a date if it bit him in the butt. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now I wonder if you didn’t mean a different kind of date from the one I had in mind.”

Mel looked away. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’ll tell you, then. When I suggested that Burns talk to you about the Web site, he didn’t want to have a thing to do with it. He insisted that I had to do it. I thought he might just be intimidated by you, but politicians don’t intimidate that easily. It had to be something else.”

“So?” Mel said. She wasn’t going to make it easy.

“So I have a feeling you and Burns are better acquainted than I thought you were. You and Kergan knew each other pretty well, too. I’d like to know what was going on with the three of you.”

The tissue Mel held had been wadded into a small, tight ball. She unwadded it and blew her nose. She got up and walked into the computer room, where she threw the tissue into a wastebasket.

Rhodes listened to Dicky Doo and the Don’ts sing “Click Clack” until she came back.

She sat back on the couch and said, “All right, what do you want me to say?”

“I want to hear about you and Burns, and I want you to tell me how Kergan comes into whatever relationship you had.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with running Jerry down.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“I don’t think Mikey did, either.”

Rhodes wasn’t a hundred percent sure of that. He kept thinking about that black truck. It could have been one that was kept off the roads as a farm vehicle, as he’d first thought, but another place where a truck like that would go unremarked was a precinct barn like the one where Burns had his office.

“If you’ll just tell me what was going on with the three of you,” Rhodes said, “I might be able to make up my mind about what you and Burns might have done. Or not done.”

“All right,” Mel said. “I’ll tell you. It’s not very interesting, though. Excuse me.”

She got up and left the room. Rhodes listened to someone singing about a little white cloud that cried. He couldn’t remember the singer’s name. When Mel returned, she held a box of tissues.

“In case I need one,” she explained, setting the box on the coffee table before she sat on the couch.

“Like the little white cloud,” Rhodes said.

She gave him a blank look.

“On the radio,” Rhodes said. “Or the Internet. It was in a song that was playing.”

“Oh.”

“Right. Now about Mikey Burns.”

“He and I have known each other for a while,” Mel said. “When his wife died, he got interested in computers. Then when YTwoK was coming up, he got worried about what was going to happen. You remember YTwoK, don’t you?”

“Well enough,” Rhodes said.

He remembered that there had been some kind of worldwide near panic that computers everywhere would crash, throwing the cities and countries everywhere into crisis. Some people in Clearview had stockpiled food, even gone so far as to bury huge supplies of it in the country around town in preparation for the collapse of civilization.

It hadn’t happened. Midnight came and went all over the world, and the computers kept right on computing, or whatever they did. Rhodes figured some residents of the county were still digging up food supplies.

He didn’t see what any of this had to do with Mikey Burns, however.

“He hired me to check all his computers,” Mel said. “He didn’t want anything to happen to them. We got to know each other a little. One thing led to another. You know how it is, I’m sure.”

Rhodes nodded. He didn’t exactly know how it was, not being as steamy as Sage Barton, but he had a pretty good idea.

“We went out a few times. We got along. I thought he liked me more than he did, maybe. Anyway, it didn’t last. He dropped me.”

That would have been about the time Burns was running for commissioner, Rhodes thought.

“He didn’t think I was the right kind of person to have around him when he was politicking,” Mel said, confirming Rhodes’s suspicions. “As soon as he got elected, he started to come around again. Fool that I was, I went out with him. Just when I thought things were getting serious, he dropped me again.”